Previous research has shown that episodic and semantic long-term memory (LTM) can support working memory (WM) performance in young adults. When remembering word pairs, performance improves when pairs have been previously learned (episodic LTM) or are semantically related (semantic LTM, e.g., table-chair). However, these types of LTM support are typically examined in isolation, and it remains unclear whether they contribute to WM via distinct mechanisms or whether their roles change with age. Across three experiments, younger and older adults completed word-pair WM tasks that independently manipulated episodic and semantic LTM support (Experiment 1a: N = 56 younger adults, N = 56 older adults; Experiment 1b: N = 55 younger adults; Experiment 2: N = 59 younger adults, N = 60 older adults). We examined whether older adults may benefit from both forms of LTM within the same task, how episodic and semantic support interact, and which mechanisms underlie the semantic benefit to WM. The results show that both younger and older adults reliably benefited from episodic LTM support. Semantic relatedness also improved WM performance across age groups. Critically, analyses targeting underlying mechanisms indicated that the semantic benefit arose from facilitated formation of episodic traces within the activated portion of LTM, rather than from strengthened bindings maintained within WM itself. Together, these findings demonstrate that WM flexibly draws on episodic and semantic LTM and that this capacity remains largely intact in older adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

We rely on the efficient processing of signals from an array of sensory organs to facilitate appropriate responses to the world around us. Normal, healthy aging has been associated with a decline in our ability to do this effectively. This is especially true when the task is complex and/or the signals are conflicting, implying that cognitive control may play a role. However, multisensory aging studies rarely make direct comparisons with unisensory tasks, and past research into age-related changes in cognitive control has focused heavily on unisensory stimuli. It is therefore unclear whether previously reported age differences are specific to multisensory perception or instead result from general impairments to cognitive control. The present study aimed to compare the effects of aging on cognitive control in unisensory versus multisensory contexts. Younger (n = 53; 18-30 years) and older (n = 61; 65-88 years) adults completed visual and audiovisual Stroop tasks, with and without trial-by-trial task switching to manipulate cognitive control demands. No age-related decline in performance was found in any unisensory condition. The groups also responded similarly to multisensory stimuli in the absence of task switching. However, older adults performed markedly worse during multisensory task switching, particularly in response to incongruent stimuli. Our findings clearly demonstrate that circumstances exist under which older adults exhibit deficits specific to multisensory processing and that these age differences are influenced by changes in cognitive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

During the recall of pictorial information, individuals typically exhibit eye movements directed toward the locations they focused on during perceptual encoding. This behavior is thought to support memory retrieval by linking spatial information to cognitive processes. Given the known memory decline associated with healthy aging, investigating age-related changes in eye movements during recall is crucial. We compared the eye movement patterns of older (N = 38, 65-75 years) and younger adults (N = 37, 20-35 years) during different pictorial recall tasks. Both groups tended to look back at the original stimulus locations; however, this effect was less pronounced in older adults. They displayed less systematic and more dispersed fixations across the screen. Moreover, eye position information generalized to novel objects from previously seen categories in both groups. In terms of performance, older adults performed worse than younger adults on an old/new recognition task but not on a task assessing visual detail recall. Older adults rated their mental images as more vivid than younger adults did, which may reflect differences in the perception or interpretation of vividness or subjective bias. The observed pattern of eye behavior, together with the relatively preserved recall performance, suggests that older adults rely less on embodied strategies, consistent with prior findings indicating an age-related shift toward gist-based representations. Overall, our results demonstrate that eye movement behavior during pictorial recall changes with age, highlighting the need for further investigation into the underlying mechanisms and possible consequences of this change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined age-related differences in real-world wayfinding, with a focus on gait behavior and its role in spatial orientation. Twenty-six younger adults (age 23.6 ± 2.2) and 25 older adults (OA; age 70.5 ± 4.3) completed a naturalistic navigation task involving route learning, route retracing, and in-lab spatial memory tasks. Although OA made more spatial errors during wayfinding, they exhibited faster gait speeds than younger adults, a finding that contrasts with prior virtual environment or lab-based studies. Gait analysis revealed age-specific strategies: Younger adults maintained consistent walk ratios, suggesting cognitive prioritization, while OA showed more frequent stop-and-go behavior, suggesting greater reliance on pausing as an orienting strategy during navigation. Notably, stop-and-go frequency significantly correlated with wayfinding performance in both virtual environment and real-world conditions, indicating a potential compensatory mechanism to recalibrate internal spatial representations through intermittent pausing. These findings suggest that gait may play a more active role in navigation than previously recognized. Studying wayfinding in real environments, where gait, sensory cues, and cognitive load interact naturally, offers new insight into age-related navigational adaptation. The results underscore the value of ecological validity in understanding the motor-cognitive interplay that supports environmental memory formation across the lifespan. This research provides a foundation for developing dual task training and gait-informed interventions aimed at supporting mobility, orientation, and autonomy in OA. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Emerging findings suggest that older adults rely more on gist-based representations of an event's general meaning than on verbatim representations of surface details during decision making. This tendency is often attributed to age-related cognitive changes and accumulated life experience. However, the extent to which older adults rely on gist representations for pragmatic decision making based on linguistic information remains unclear. To address this gap, we used a recognition probe task to compare how older and younger adults' gist representations of general meaning influence pragmatic comprehension when interpreting implicit speech acts (ISAs), in which intentions are conveyed without an explicit performative verb. The task elicited automatic recognition of intentions from ISAs and involved conversations ending with a target remark conveying an ISA, such as "I couldn't have done it without you," followed by a probe word capturing the implied intention, for example, "thank." Participants judged whether the probe word had literally occurred in the final remark. We hypothesized that if participants automatically accessed the implied intention of ISAs, this gist activation would interfere with verbatim-based probe judgments, resulting in longer reaction times relative to a non-ISA control condition. The results from 34 younger (M = 21.8 years) and 34 older (M = 72.3 years) native Japanese speakers showed that older participants exhibited significantly longer reaction times in the ISA condition than in the control condition, whereas younger participants did not. These findings suggest that older adults demonstrate an advantage in gist-based processing, which may facilitate the interpretation of implicit pragmatic intentions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

To date, few studies have explored the role of older adults' self-perceptions of aging (SPA) in the context of volunteering and how SPA might shape or be shaped by volunteering. Using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models and data from the German Ageing Survey, this study examined the bidirectional associations between different gain- and loss-related facets of older adults' SPA (i.e., perceptions of physical losses, social losses, and ongoing development) and their engagement in volunteering over a 9-year period. Gender differences in these associations were also examined. The study sample comprised 4,512 older adults (ages 65-93 years at baseline). At the between-person level, individuals with overall higher scores on SPA of social losses reported overall fewer hours of volunteering per week, whereas participants' scores on the other two SPA scales were not significantly associated with volunteering at the between-person level. With regard to within-person cross-lagged associations, paths from prior volunteering to subsequent SPA were statistically nonsignificant. However, higher than one's average SPA of physical losses was associated with less volunteering than one's average at the subsequent measurement occasion, whereas scoring higher than one's average SPA of ongoing development showed the opposite association with volunteering at subsequent occasions. Findings also revealed gender differences in the associations between SPA of social losses and volunteering. In summary, the findings of this study showed that different dimensions of older adults' SPA are differentially associated with their volunteering over time and that it may be important to take a gender-specific perspective on volunteering. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Exposure to more alternatives in multiple-choice (MC) questions tends to harm new learning in younger adults (YAs; Roediger & Marsh, 2005). Cognitive aging theories make opposing predictions about whether MC tests would benefit or harm immediate and subsequent memory in older adults (OAs). Compared to YAs, OAs have more extensive knowledge bases, access to which could be disproportionately bolstered through activation of related knowledge or harmed due to difficulties inhibiting competition by increasing alternatives. Here, OAs and YAs answered age-normed general knowledge MC questions with two, four, or six alternatives. After 6 min or 1 week, participants completed a short-answer test with the same questions. For both age groups, accuracy decreased as lure number increased on the MC test. When participants answered correctly on the MC test, accuracy on the short-answer test 6 min later increased after exposure to more alternatives, but after initial errors, accuracy decreased with more alternatives. After a week, MC alternative number no longer impacted short-answer performance. Notably, the effects of alternative manipulations appear to be age-invariant and relatively short-lived in the context of general knowledge retrieval. Unlike in many other memory tasks, OAs performed largely the same as YAs. When the answer was accessible, OAs' later memory for general knowledge benefitted just as much as YAs' from seeing more alternatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although there is a consensus about age-related impairments in true memory, the relationship between aging and false memory remains less clear. Both the fuzzy-trace theory and the activation-monitoring theory postulate possible effects of cognitive aging on the processes of encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. Yet, quantitative analyses of cognitive aging, both healthy (younger vs. older adults) and pathological (older adults vs. mild cognitive impairment/Alzheimer's disease), on false memory have not been conducted. We meta-analyzed 150 articles with 414 independent effect sizes and found a robust aging effect of false memory, with older adults showing higher levels of false memory than younger adults in both spontaneous (Hedges's g = 0.538, 95% CI [0.432, 0.644]) and suggestion-induced false memory (Hedges's g = 0.460, 95% CI [0.255, 0.665]). Mild cognitive impairment/Alzheimer's disease patients showed significantly higher levels of spontaneous (Hedges's g = 0.486, 95% CI [0.053, 0.919]) but not suggestion-induced false memory (Hedges's g = 0.608, 95% CI [-0.286, 1.502]) than healthy older adults. For the study and test phase, moderator analyses indicated that experimental material, modality, true memory, paradigm, type of test, and the retention interval significantly influenced aging effect on false memory. For general moderators, participants' age and education level were also significant. Our results underscore the importance of integrating the fuzzy-trace theory and activation-monitoring theory to account for age differences in false memory across types. Both healthy and pathological cognitive aging increase susceptibility to false memory, and the decline in verbatim memory and monitoring functions, combined with hyperactivation during encoding, may account for aging effect in false memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Older age is characterized by attenuated episodic memory but intact semantic memory. At the same time, online semantic processing, particularly the prediction of lexical information, is attenuated, as reflected by a smaller event-related potential N400 effect for expected versus unexpected items. Previous research focused on semantic processing of verbal materials. However, we aimed at investigating not only age-related differences in the semantic processing of pictorial materials but also the relationship between such age-related differences and associative memory performance. Using picture pairs, we investigated whether age-related differences in online semantic processing, as manifested in the N400, are reflected in a behavioral measure of semantic processing (i.e., perceived semantic congruency) and, in addition, transfer to associative episodic memory. Younger and older adults studied sequentially presented object pairs with and without semantic relationships (e.g., a bathtub followed by a rubber duck, or a pillow followed by a punch, respectively). Their task was to judge the object pairs' semantic congruency. Thereafter, an associative memory test was conducted, in which participants had to discriminate between intact, recombined, and new object pairs. In the study phase, younger adults showed the expected N400 attenuation effect for semantically related pairs. For older adults, this effect was reduced, even though there was no difference between both age groups either in the magnitude of the semantic congruency judgments or in the behavioral congruency effect. Furthermore, both age groups showed highly similar benefits for semantically related pairs in the ensuing associative memory test. In conclusion, older adults seem to rely more on bottom-up stimulus-driven integrative processes instead of applying top-down predictive processes initiated by preactivated semantic knowledge. Furthermore, older adults' online semantic processing seems to be decoupled from the processing that results in associative memory benefit from semantic relations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Age-related declines in visual perception challenge older adults' ability to locate and identify objects in noisy (e.g., fog, glare, inadequate lighting) or cluttered visual environments. To compensate, older adults often increase reliance on contextual information, which could be helpful, but may also lead to increased risk for "false seeing"-reporting expected objects based on contextual information rather than those actually presented-a phenomenon that Jacoby et al. (2012) observed in older adults under challenging viewing conditions. However, it remains unaddressed whether such false seeing is driven by older adults' elevated tendency to rely on context or by age-related declines in visual perceptual processes. The present study addressed this issue by examining the lexical priming effects in 18 younger and 18 older adults (M = 21.4 years; M = 76.2 years) in Experiment 1 and 13 younger and 13 older adults (M = 21.2 years; M = 74.8 years) in Experiment 2 using a two-alternative, forced-choice paradigm, while controlling for age-related perceptual differences. On each trial, participants identified a visually degraded target word preceded by an identical, semantically related, or unrelated prime. We applied signal detection theory to isolate perceptual sensitivity (d') and response bias (c). Results revealed that once stimulus parameters were adjusted to eliminate age differences in performance when the prime was unrelated to the target, age-related differences in target identification in the related priming conditions were predominantly driven by age-related differences in response bias rather than in any residual age differences in perceptual sensitivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).